Camera that Sees through Smoke and Fog Underway

tomschuring writes "The Age has a story about IATIA, who have been given $2.7 million by the Defence Department to fund development of a military spy camera capable of seeing through fog, smoke and dust storms. The technology uses a highly sophisticated camera that captures three images simultaneously through a single lens. Images thus resolved from between the particles making up fog, smoke, and dust storms are formed into a single picture of the hidden target."

density

[Coneasfast]

how dense can the fog particles be? this camera would have to have an extremely large resolution to do this kind of thing. anyone have any specs on this?

the uses for this are endless, eg, if the technology becomes cheap enough, we can have this in cars to help driving during foggy weather.

interesting but

[abaybas]

So they are using the principle of parallax. It's like how we can hold our finger infront of our face and still get a complete picture; the parts that are blocked on one eye are completed by the other. Though with fog, it would seem to me that since there are so many particles for the light to go through, even if you had 3 cameras looking from different places, they would still get a foggy picture. It would be like trying to look through a forest.

Re:We don't need this

[Darthmalt]

Probably because it's easier for him to get moner for his research from the military. Many things we use as consumers everyday were started by the military.

GPS, Radar, heck even the microwave (though that was more the British military.

vaporware

[Doc Ruby]

Wake me when journalists have a camera that can see through the fog of war, where the first casualty is the truth.

Re:Warning: Registraton Required

[RLiegh]

Why waste all the extra effort when you can just use a login already made for you?
Mostly, I was thinking because inevitably whenever someone posts a username/password to a site like that on /., someone decides to be an asshole and change the password.

If that happens, they can fire up a quick throw away account using mailinator.

Re:We don't need this

[rebelcool]

Who are you to say "we dont need this"? You can forsee all applications of a technology before its made? And you automatically assume just because the money is initially military its going to be used to "kill people"? What nonsense.

This would useful for finding people in a burning building full of smoke. Or imagine putting it onto a car as a warning system in heavy fog that you're approaching an obstacle too fast. Same with planes. Surely more creative people than I can dream up a dozen applications for this.

Here's a tip about research: The military has a ton of money, and they spend it on all kinds of things that have nothing to do with "killing people". As pointed out already, the internet was a defense project. So was GPS. So was radar. So was a million other extremely useful things.

"We dont need this" - we don't need you and your cluelessness.

Re:O-kaaayy...

[FooAtWFU]

Around these parts, it works the other way around... things are legal until they're illegal. Who shouldn't be allowed to use it?

Sounds cool, but...Fear Factor.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know, like a camera that sees through girl's clothing... "

You know what? Now I think I see why all you guys don't have dates. You're scaring them all away. See through clothing indeed.

Re:Dense Camera Arrays for seeing through bushes

[TiggertheMad]

What they are saying is this: They take three pictures. On a camera there is a point somewhere in front of the lens that is the 'focus point'. The distance it is away from the camera will vary by the lenses and their distance apart, but it is basically a fixed distance for any given setting. The first picture that point is set too far behind the subject, the second right on the subject (In focus) and the third in front of the subject. Because you know how the lenses were made, you can do some math and figure out how far away each element in the picture is by how the focus changes between the shots, and get a (quasi) 3d model of everything in the picture. The concept is simple enough, although having a proc that can do that in real time could be a challenge.

The real challenge is this: You are building a 3d model by interpolating data from a scene, but you are only doing it in one dimension. I bet a 3d picture would look like a scene from Doom1. You can create flat sprites and position them, but you can't capture any depth information without paralax interpolation either via lateral movement and reshooting or additional cameras.

Re:We don't need this

[whorfin]

Yeah, nothing that was ever funded by military research has ever come to any good for society.

Well, except for computers and the internet. Everything else was crap. And I guess those satellites that let us talk all over the world and get sports and softcore porn beamed into our house are pretty neat too, except for the lite beer ads. And did I mention the GPS I've got on my cell phone?

Yeah, military research is a total dead end.

We don't need this-Doomed to reruns.

[Anonymous Coward]

All correct however it's still sad that what brings out the best in people is also the worst. And in answer to "You can forsee all applications of a technology before its made? ". One doesn't have to be clarivoyant when it comes to humanity. Merely observant.

Re:also

[wwelch]

Hopefully fire departments will be able to afford this technology so that fire fighters will be able to see people through the smoke of the fire...

Re:We don't need this

[d474]

You brought up some good points. I'm just playing the Devil's advocate here...just for sake of discussion:

This would useful for finding people in a burning building full of smoke... and once the targets have been acquired, neutralize them.

Or imagine putting it onto a car as a warning system in heavy fog that you're approaching an obstacle too fast... or taking advantage of a dust storm and locating the enemy before he can locate you.

Same with planes... same reason, faster visual target acquisition is an advantage.

the internet was a defense project... that could allow us to maintain communication after a nuclear strike which is necessary if orders for a counter-strike are no be disemminated

So was GPS... to guide precision munitions to targets to increase kill ratios

So was radar... to detect any and all potential aerial and sea going enemy targets

"We dont need this" - we don't need you and your cluelessness... nor your innocence.

Just wanted let you know that there is always a way technology can be used by the military that is related to killing people. Especially if the military is involved in it's development.

Re:Already exists

[GooberToo]

I'm guessing that it's an IR type camera, which is more commonly being used by fire fighters these days. They use these to quickly search burning houses (etc). Without this gear, they must search the same way rescue workers have for the last several hundred years (blind belly crawl), if not longer. Even these cameras have their limitations, based on the ambient temp and the number/size of particulants in the air. These generally work well for rescue because the air on the floor is cool and a warm body still makes for good contrast.

I can't remember the brand of this system, but IIRC, they are super expensive. Expect to have to pay something like $40-60k per camera, per fire fighter. This is why communities often do fund raisers to get these for their local firehouses. Bluntly, most firehouses can't afford one, let alone the multiples, which are considered ideal.

At any rate, after all that, there is a huge difference between IR and what this article is talking about.

Re:vaporware

[powerlinekid]

Oh jesus christ...